Nigeria: National education summit to address funding

The Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Minister of Education to urgently convene a summit on education to address the issue of funding in the sector.

This was disclosed by the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, while declaring open the Officials’ Session of the 63rd National Council on Education(NCE) in Abuja.

National development
President Buhari described education as a tool for national development, saying that ”its funding is a sine-qua-non for sustainable development.”

He also directed the Federal Ministry of Education to convene a national summit to explore different funding models for the Nigerian education sector.

The Permanent Secretary, Echono stated that the three tiers of government; Federal, State and Local government would be mobilised to efficiently support the funding of education.

Funding
He noted that no government could fund education alone and therefore called on stakeholders to join hands with the Nigerian government to reduce the population of out-of-school children across the country.

Echono stressed that ”the directive of Mr. President would form the fulcrum of discussion at the National Council on Education holding in Abuja this week.”

The Director, Educational Planning, Research and Development, Mrs. Chioma Nwadei observed that education was the key for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The 63rd National Council on Education (NCE) is holding in Abuja from Monday 30th July to Thursday 2nd August, 2018.